SPS, Food, Geography, Oh My!

 

Happy Monday!

This is the beginning of week three of the SPS challenge. Mondays are our big day. I was up by 6:30, made bed, showered, tea, quiet time/Bible study, laundry, filled out SPS, kids up, enjoyed the sunrise, ready for CC, arrived EARLY (well, for us, anyway).

So this is what I’ve been missing. Glorious.

 

I enjoyed spending time with friends today. Russ watched Lola for the afternoon while the boys were in class, and then he watched all the kids while I had an outing with my sisters to check out some free books (lovely, in every way). We skipped archery tonight.

This is the beginning of week two of the good food challenge. Seven days down. Six pounds down (wahoo!!). And feeling great. My husband is particularly enjoying the hot, well-rounded, homemade meals every evening.

I made delicious Chinese 5-Spice Turkey Lettuce Boats topped with matchstick bell peppers, broccoli slaw, and a sesame dressing from Practical Paleo on Friday. They were beautiful, but I was too hungry to snap a photo. I made the leftovers into a salad, which I had today for lunch.

The rest of the family had waffles yesterday (one of my favorites), so I needed something other than eggs. I whipped up a batch of sweet potato latkes and ate them with apples fried in coconut oil topped with a little Greek yogurt and a dash of cinnamon. Serious good food!

This is the start of my geography challenge. I currently can manage to locate with accuracy the countries of Europe, Asia (including the Middle East), and South and Central America along with the United States and the provinces and territories of Canada. I’m trying to review these continents daily. I’d like to get Oceania, the Caribbean, and Africa before moving on to higher levels of proficiency and adding bodies of water.

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Inspiration

::  Imagionality: Understanding Your Child’s Imaginative Personality by Clay Clarkson @ Story Warren (I cannot wait to read the rest of his three-part series!)

“Here’s a pattern from the Genesis creation account that I want to suggest: Information, Imagination, Creation. In other words, information feeds imagination which fuels creation. If our core personality is all about mentally processing information—how we gather it, and how we act on it—then God’s order of creation seems to suggest that imagination is not just a product of our mental processes, but rather an inherent capacity within us. Imagination stands apart from personality.”

::  Who Really Gets to Do What They Love? @ The Take Away (What do you think?)

::  Why Christians Should Create @ Relevant Magazine

"Art is how we express our unfathomable reality in words or pictures or sounds. When a painter paints a sunrise, the artist is putting forth his or her interpretation of the emotions and unspoken words of that sunrise. The author of a book is projecting part of his or herself into the characters and settings, sometimes expressing his or herself in ways that surprise even the author."

::  Life Through a Leica @ Chicago Magazine (Lovely.)

::  Dr. Andrew Kern- Why Literature is Essential in Education  (I cannot wait to hear Andrew In person next month!)